A young child in a pushchair was lucky to escape with just cuts and bruises after a 4.4kg sign fell on them from about 15ft from outside a kebab shop in Penzance.

Truro Magistrates Court heard last week that the fixings used to hang the sign above Rami’s Kebab shop in Market Jew Street, failed due to windy conditions on May 18, 2015. The business had been warned only hours earlier about the state of the sign.

Kamis Kebab Limited and director Serif Kandemir of Market Jew Street, were fined £6,300 and ordered to pay full costs of £2,906.95, a victim surcharge of £150 and £100 compensation to the family, after pleading guilty to a single breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

An investigation by Cornwall Council public protection found that the sign had been "hanging by a thread" for about 18 months, with the operator of the business failing to deal with the matter. Luckily, such was the strength of the gust of wind that dislodged the sign, it was blown onto railings before falling onto the child in the push chair.

Magistrates were told that the incident could have been prevented had the operator of the business had regular checks in place to ensure the integrity of the building and building elements.

After the hearing, Cornwall Council senior environmental health officer Tim Bage said: "This was an entirely preventable incident that resulted in a large sign falling onto an innocent pedestrian. It is sheer luck that it struck the railings below before falling onto the child, otherwise the child could well have been killed. The operator of the building was warned about the sign's perilous state in the hours before it failed.”

Shop operators and building owners are being urged to ensure that they conduct regular maintenance checks on the external facades of their premises to ensure that the building elements are in good repair. This is particularly important in Cornwall where there are a large number of premises exposed to the effects of salt water corrosion and coastal winds.

Guidance is available from the Building Research Establishment at bre.co.uk/pdf/facademaintenance.pdf.